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Regular blood donations can reduce “forever chemicals” in the bloodstream: study
- buildsjets 4y agoSo, the solution to pollution REALLY IS dilution.
- incomingpain 4y agoCanadian blood services specifically doesn't allow me to donate blood. Admittedly, I fear needles pretty fiercely anyway so it's not something I'm going to be fighting. I find it interesting though that the argument to donate blood is that one's blood might be toxic. That giving away your toxic blood might make your own blood less toxic.
- jesusofnazarath 4y ago
- wirelesspotat 4y agoYeah, the article mentions recipients of the toxic blood. I wonder if there will be more research to identify any risks for recipients > The logic in removing them is simple: PFAS work by binding to serum proteins in the blood; removing some of this blood, therefore, would lead to the reduction of forever chemicals in the bloodstream. As to the question of what happens to recipients of this blood: “Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances are ubiquitous, and no threshold has been identified that poses an increased risk to recipients of donated blood components.”
- DrBoring 4y agoThat prompts a curious thought: If you dump 1 unit of your toxic blood into the 9 units of blood inside the body of a transfusion recipient, then how toxic does their blood become? 1/10 toxic? I've also wondered, is it possible for a transfusion recipient to fail a drug screening test because their doner had recently consumed drug prior to their donation.
- d4mi3n 4y agoIs there any reason why one couldn’t simply have blood as a kind of treatment? I’d certainly be happy to have blood drawn if it meant lowering blood toxicity I had no other way of treating.
- slt2021 4y agoreligious Muslims have treatment that is exactly that - blood drawing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupping_therapy#Wet_cupping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupping_therapy#Wet_cupping
- toast0 4y agoTherapeutic phlebotomy, basically bloodletting, is a common treatment for hemochromatosis, iron overload. It would make sense as a treatment if you've got too much of a substance in your system, that substance accumulates in your blood, and you're otherwise healthy enough to tolerate the loss of blood periodically. Depending on the substance, there may be other means that are more effective, or less invasive, of course; and if it's an urgent need to reduce the substance, bloodletting would likely be too slow.
- wrycoder 4y agoOr you could take small dose aspirin and just bleed internally. Same result, fewer heart attacks.
- fredley 4y agoI started donating blood specifically because I have a needle phobia. I'm up to 8 donations now and feeling better about it each time.
- shafyy 4y agoI also had an "irrational" fear of donating blood and needles, and being encouraged by my girlfriend, also started doing it. Well, I did it once a couple of months ago and almost passed after some minutes (they had to stop). Apparently, this is not uncommon for young skinny males. But maybe my excitement also didn't help. Will try again :D
- segmondy 4y agoAnother way to say that Bloodletting can reduce toxic forever chemicals in the bloodstream.
- np_tedious 4y agoBrings up an interesting question. Say you couldn't donate due to tattoos, needle use from steroids or IV drugs ("have you ever injected anything not prescribed by a doctor"), gay or paid sex, etc Are there services for bloodletting?
- akira2501 4y agoYes.. "Venesection." People with hemachromatosis utilize it.
- colechristensen 4y agoIt’s not bloodletting but some things do come out in sweat, I remember reading a paper that demonstrated heavy metals come out in sweat in significant amounts. Perhaps other things do as well.
- sschueller 4y agoThat would mean people who workout a lot should have less than sedatary people.
- colechristensen 4y agoThis is quite possible, now go write a grant application for a study :)
- hypertele-Xii 4y agoOr cultures that use the sauna.
- jryb 4y agoDuring blood donations there's a step where they ask you if it's okay to use your blood (which is indicated by selecting one of two barcode stickers that the technician can't interpret). I assume this is for people who are pressured to donate blood as a group but don't want to out themselves as being ineligible. You could just go do that and select the "don't use my blood" sticker.
- MiddleEndian 4y agoI shall have my servant bring me my leeches at once!
- treeman79 4y agoYou say this in jest. But how would one actually get rid of blood if you can’t donate?
- rufus_foreman 4y agoSkateboarding.
- 1-6 4y agoStop jesting.
- andymboyle 4y agoSome folks on certain medications (or just because) can have an increase in red blood cell production, sometimes called "blood thickening," I believe, and they can sometimes just get a prescription from a doctor to go to a donation facility. Or some facilities will still just allow you to do this if you tell them you need to get rid of excess blood for the reasons above, and then they dispose of it. (Not everyone requires a doctor's prescription for it.) That's just one use case, obviously, so there is a system for some to get rid of excess blood, at least, in a similar manner as you would donate.
- EvanAnderson 4y agoThere was some discussion[0] on HN a few weeks ago organizations (like the Red Cross[1]) not accepting donations from patients who require therapeutic phlebotomy (hemochromatosis patients, for example) because their donation provides the donor a benefit (and therefore isn't strictly altruistic). That sent me down an interesting rabbit hole of reading (link in discussion). [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30808856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30808856 [1] https://www.redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/blood-donation-process/before-during-after/iron-blood-donation.html https://www.redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/blood-donation-pr...
- neogodless 4y agoDonate your perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) to those in need! Hmm: > As to the question of what happens to recipients of this blood: “Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances are ubiquitous, and no threshold has been identified that poses an increased risk to recipients of donated blood components.”
- delecti 4y agoBy putting "toxic chemicals" in the title along with that sentence in the body, it sure seems like they're trying to have their cake and eat it too with this article. It also lists a bunch of negative things that are associated with PFAS levels. They're toxic, and associated with a bunch of bad things, but don't worry. > apart from being identified as potentially carcinogenic, PFAS are associated with “low fetal weight, impaired immune response, thyroid function abnormalities, obesity, increased lipid levels, liver function alterations, and, potentially, an increased risk of some malignant neoplasms.” I suppose that most blood recipients are probably better off with increased PFAS than going without the infusion, but the article sure presents the situation clumsily.
- skrbjc 4y agoMy guess is that the person who needs blood cares more about getting the blood or plasma than the small amount of PFAS in it, which they likely have already. If this causes more people to donate, it's probably a good thing overall, even if the people doing it are doing so in the hopes of cleansing their own system of these chemicals.
- giantg2 4y agoWhile I generally agree the idea that it's not harmful enough to stop a transfer, I disagree with the basis of the argument. We could also say that given a choice between death and HIV, the blood recipient would still want the blood.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> given a choice between death and HIV, the blood recipient would still want the blood …yes?
- phren0logy 4y agoSharing is caring?
- wirelesspotat 4y agoI don't like how "toxic forever chemicals in the bloodstream" is a normal thing Veritasium has a great YouTube video about this: "The Man Who Accidentally Killed The Most People In History"[0] [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV3dnLzthDA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV3dnLzthDA
- thunkshift1 4y agoDamn.. that dude caused more mayhem and destruction than genghis khan..
- 6d6b73 4y agoIt looks like the school blood letting is the way to health. And scientists laughed at people using leeches back in the day.
- 1024core 4y agoCould you just filter your blood externally, dialysis-style, and get rid of these chemicals that way?
- Pulcinella 4y agoPerhaps these sorts of chemicals re not particularly water soluble? Otherwise you kidneys could just filter them out into your urine.
- munk-a 4y agoEven if the body doesn't have the equipment built in to deal with it it's not a stretch to believe that we could build an external machine specialized to the task - whether dialysis machines can do it on their own or not I'm uncertain.
- colechristensen 4y agoI would much rather lose blood than require my body to try to rebalance what a dialysis machine disrupted. A filter which excludes all of the things you don’t want in your blood and left anything besides plain water would be hard, not worth the trouble.
- xwdv 4y agoWhat if the blood collectors just find a way to filter out PFAs so they don’t get into your donation and they collect a pure sample, and overtime you just keep saturating your blood with PFAs through constant donations? No thanks.
- at_a_remove 4y agoThat would be more like plasma donation, where it is filtered and sent back to you. Blood donation doesn't work like that. No filtration.
- croes 4y agoSo we are back to bloodletting?
- codingdave 4y agoYes, just as that is the standard treatment for hemochromatosis. Just because it is the wrong treatment for most things does not mean it has zero therapeutic value in specific circumstances.
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoHow about donating platelets? Due to my blood type, they want my platelets.
- aesh2Xa1 4y agoIf the PFAS get separated into the same category as the platelets, yes, this'll work. I doubt they do.
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoThen the sick person gets that stuff? Yay
- dxscorp 4y agoThey want your platelets anyway, they are almost always in demand. Some types are more useful but anyone should consider!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mynameisnoone 4y ago
- tyronehed 4y agoThis means anybody who gets a blood donation is getting a nice dose of forever chemicals.
- aeternum 4y agoI guess instead of donations we could bring back the idea of bloodletting or just swimming with the leeches.
- QuikAccount 4y agoIf you are in a position that you need blood donation, getting PFAS in your blood is the least of your concerns
- loaph 4y agoIf you're getting a blood donation, you've likely lost a lot of blood that is being made up by the donation. So you lost blood and by extension forever chemicals and are replacing blood and by extension forever chemicals. I bet it's a wash as far as +- chemicals.
- matthias509 4y agoAlso, choking people get bruises to the abdomen when someone performs the Heimlich maneuver on them, and people with cancer get pumped full of chemicals which just about kill them. That treatments also cause harm is pretty normal in medicine.
- aidenn0 4y agoThere's also been some recent evidence that donating blood can increase lifespan in men, with lowering serum iron levels suggested as the causal link.
- M5x7wI3CmbEem10 4y agowhy not just get regularly blood tested? blood testing also extracts blood. but on top of it, you get information
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago> why not just get regularly blood tested? Volume. A blood sample is at a stretch max 20ml. A blood donation is about 300ml.
- M5x7wI3CmbEem10 4y agoah, thanks!
- zwieback 4y agoHaving grown up in Germany I cannot donate blood here in the US (mad cow) so I guess I'll stew in my toxins...
- droopyEyelids 4y agoIf this was conclusively proven to be a benefit, you could acquire the equipment, drain a pint of your own blood, and then put it in the compost every couple months.
- ipython 4y agoI had the same problem but it looks like the rules have changed: https://www.redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/how-to-donate/eligibility-requirements/eligibility-criteria-alphabetical/eligibility-reference-material.html https://www.redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/how-to-donate/eli...
- zwieback 4y agoThanks so much for posting that, looks like I'm eligible now. Was always feeling a bit bad when the blood drive came around at my workplace.
- hereme888 4y agoSheesh, I can't believe the percent of negative comments! Someone finally figured a way to reduce PFAS. It's a hugely positive finding, especially in light of people being able to keep their red blood cells. Hopefully it can be ruled as a safe long-term solution for now. Looking forward to reading updates on this research. And btw, donating plasma doesn't mean other people will get your PFAS; many things can be done with plasma besides injecting into other people.
- s0rce 4y agoEven if someone else would get your PFAS its most likely they have them as well and its certainly better than dying of blood loss or not treating other serious issues that rely on various blood products.
- qgin 4y agoAbsolutely, the point of a blood transfusion is that a body needs blood replenished faster than it can produce it. A blood transfusion now, PFAS or no, gives someone a chance to survive (and who knows, maybe donate blood themselves at some point)
- pessimizer 4y agoAnyway it's a problem you can fix yourself by donating more blood than you receive.
- KarlKemp 4y agoThere are diseases where you get regular transfusions. For these patients, PFAS would become a problem since they are, by definition, not subject to degradation. Unless, of course, the patients are physically losing blood. Which makes me wonder if women have a specific advantage on this matter. I do remember reading that regular blood donations show health benefits, and that women get them "for free", so to speak. This may be part of the reason.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y agoOur recent cavemen ancestors probably got injured and bled a bit much more often than we do. It's not hard to imagine the human body optimizing for those conditions, which would make permanently holding onto all your blood suboptimal.
- s0rce 4y agoThis is the first example of detoxifying your body might actually be real.
- hereme888 4y agoDetoxification/cleansing has always been real, in the alternative and conventional/allopathic medical worlds. I don't know any school of thought that denies the benefits of cleansing (within reason); only those who disagree on how to go about it.
- mrmuagi 4y agoThe problem is the best thing to detoxify is your bodies organs and healthy function of them should be priority numero uno. I think fad diets are the terrority where it gets a bit unreasonable (juice cleanses?). Chakra/Qi cleanses?
- google234123 4y agoMost Detoxing your hear about (and all from “alternative” (read: fake) medicine) is a marketing strategy for treating nonexistent conditions. Body acidity is a myth, cleaning organs like the kidney or liver is a myth, and all the detox treatments peddled have never been shown to actually remove any toxins from a human.
- witheld 4y agoDetoxification is not any part of “conventional medicine”, or, to give it appropriate weight “medicine”. It’s also not part of any “school of thought” that isn’t crackpot garbage (so called “alternative medicine”)
- hereme888 4y agoYou clearly don't know what you're talking about. Detoxing occurs in medical settings every single day, in every hospital, in almost every clinic. Example: people overdose on Tylenol, and we may have to give them NAC (N-acetyl-cysteine) to boost their depleted glutathione levels and get rid of the toxins. Another example: people ingest a poison, and sometimes it's appropriate to make them drink activated charcoal so it can bind the toxins. These types of "Detoxes" are also common (but over-used) in the alternative world. Another example: with some infections, you can't give too many antibiotics at once or it will overload the body's detox capacity, so things are done to help. Another example: 9/11 workers who were exposed to massive amounts of toxins from burning building materials afterwards suffered from that exposure. Conventional medical doctors came up with detox protocols including the use of Far Infrared Saunas to help decrease the toxin load in their bodies.
- psychlops 4y agoNice try, vampires!
- jandrese 4y agoSeems like vampires would end up concentrating these toxic chemicals over time. Maybe a story prompt about vampires that discover they are dying due to heavy metal buildup in their systems. They go out in search of remote island nations that have populations with little exposure to modern low level contaminants. Have to adopt to slow island life.
- jeffwask 4y agoBack to leeches; got it
- 1-6 4y agoLeeches make really cool pets.
- swayvil 4y agoOr letting a dozen leeches have their way with your chestmeat. Those medieval sawbones knew some stuff.
- adamredwoods 4y agoWe should be able to test our blood for PFAS on a regular basis and our doctors should be able to let us know if we need to filter our blood. But PFAS testing is not the norm? Per a Tedx talk on this subject: https://www.nrdc.org/experts/anna-reade/pfas-blood-tests-needed-denied https://www.nrdc.org/experts/anna-reade/pfas-blood-tests-nee... >> Unfortunately, a PFAS blood test is not a routine lab test that can be processed by your local lab and covered by your health insurance. In fact, there are only a handful of labs certified to test for PFAS in blood and the out of pocket cost for this test is out of reach for most people.
- snarf21 4y agoWe should all get annual blood tests so we can track variance from out baselines.
- arcticbull 4y agoProbably not, honestly. For most tests, the risks associated with a false positive outweigh the benefits of marginally earlier detection. Humans aren't precise machines, each person has different values and different value ranges for standard measurements - and asymptomatic deviations frequently mean nothing whatsoever. On the other hand investigations can be invasive, painful, risky and expensive. There's a reason most tests aren't recommended for folks outside certain risk categories (age, family history, etc). And in a litigious society like America, it's not because it's expensive. There's some specific diseases where there's a lot of data backing this thesis - certain cancers for instance.
- sanj 4y agoI've been waiting for the Giving Plague to become real: https://www.davidbrin.com/fiction/givingplague.html https://www.davidbrin.com/fiction/givingplague.html
- bluSCALE4 4y agoFinally, a reason for me to donate.
- elil17 4y agoThere’s a theory (see slimemoldtimemold.com) that PFAS cause obesity (or, rather, cause increased hunger which in turn causes obesity). This seems like a great way to actually test that hypothesis.
- chii 4y agohow would you test for it? I'd imagine there's too many confounding factors to obesity and isolating PFAS reduction via donation is difficult.
- mensetmanusman 4y ago“Forever chemicals” is kind of a scary marketing term that helps sell ad views. PFAS materials (teflon, high temperature o-rings, refrigeration fluids, fire-fighting foams, anti-cancer drugs and other medicines, etc.) encompass such a broad range of chemistries (anything with the fluorine atom attached to carbon) that have many many orders of magnitude differences in half-life. It’s analogous to labeling anything radioactive (bananas) as a “forever chemical” because some radioactive nuclear waste does have >10k year half-lives. The nice thing about PFAS compared to nuclear though is that even the ‘forever’ versions that have really long half-lives can be easily catalyzed to break down using the right materials/temperature/pressure. People are looking for catalysis processes to get rid of nuclear waste using atto-second lasers: https://bigthink.com/the-present/laser-nuclear-waste/ https://bigthink.com/the-present/laser-nuclear-waste/ (Would be amazing if it works) Also, fluorine incorporation in water is starting to be reconsidered by some in the medical community (greatest volume of human fluorine consumption by far): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8169995/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8169995/
- revolvingocelot 4y agoMaybe you hail from the Fallout universe, but this strikes me as a totally specious comparison. Nuclear waste is the consequence of highly specialized processes occurring in highly regulated situations. It's easy to detect, straightforward to contain, and the average person need never run into it because, in addition to all this, it's regulated out the ass literally everywhere. PFAS is already in everyone's bloodstream because we slathered our cookware and dental floss in it, and nobody can stand up to DuPont.
- krapht 4y agoAre you telling me the government is fluoridating my precious bodily fluids?
- specialist 4y agoWhat would you call that category?
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
- CommanderData 4y agoBlood letting then. Is that the same?
- smm11 4y agoBlood letting, huh?
- edmcnulty101 4y agoAre there any blood test as a service sites? Where I can point and click order a blood test panel ?
- wirelesspotat 4y agoIn the USA, there's Private MD Labs, ULTA Labs, and Synergistic Labs[0]. In the UK, there's Medichecks and Thriva. I expect there are similar options in other countries. However, these general blood tests won't test for PFAS: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31125559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31125559 [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/steroids/wiki/bloodwork/list https://www.reddit.com/r/steroids/wiki/bloodwork/list
- edmcnulty101 4y agoThank you for the info!
- giantg2 4y agoSo does this imply that women have lower levels than similarly exposed men?
- jandrese 4y agoUnless you move away from the source of contamination you'll just replenish it with your blood. Given that these chemicals seem to be omnipresent in our environment you are probably out of luck.
- ComputerGuru 4y agoI assume you mean due to menstruation? It highly depends on the individual, ethnicity, health, build, etc, but the amount of actual blood (vs mucus and non-blood fluid discharge) released in a cycle isn't as much as you might think. So the answer is probably "somewhat but negligibly so?"
- giantg2 4y agoWell it happens frequently. So maybe the amount is low per occurrence, but the cumulative amount may be larger than a typical man who doesn't donate at all, right?
- daenz 4y agoI used to donate blood regularly. I would donate more regularly if I got a full blood panel with each donation. I've been quoted $600-2500. Surely you can comp that for me if I give you a pint.
- droopyEyelids 4y agoAccording to the Red Cross website, donated blood is tested, too. https://www.redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/blood-donation-process/what-happens-to-donated-blood.html https://www.redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/blood-donation-pr... So presumably they could just pass back the results of that test
- daenz 4y agoIt looks like it's just tested for different diseases. I'm more referring to my different blood metrics (cholesterol, CBC, CMP, hormones, etc)
- valarauko 4y agoI think its only tested for infectious diseases and the like, not the sort of things covered in a blood panel like the parent is referring to. I suppose at least the results of the infectious tests could be passed on.
- areyousure 4y agoIn case anyone is curious, it appears a pint of blood in the US sells for $150--$300.
- daenz 4y agoThat seems to answer it on face value, unless the prices quoted for blood panels are very inflated due to insurance. EDIT>> Maybe a punch card? Donate N pints, get a free blood panel.
- specialist 4y agoWorked for Quest Diagnostics in the mid 2000s. My understanding is they basically print money. After capex, most tests are very cheap. A bit like running a silicon fab. Lab companies absolutely should be included, as a co-equal, in the list of villains.
- rrauenza 4y agoI wonder how less effective double red donations are at this since they return your plasma to you during the donation. Sounds like plasma donations are the biggest bang for the buck, possible followed by single whole blood donations?
- superjan 4y agoThe article mentions the reduction, not beginlevels of the substances. It turns out that the reduction during the test period is about 30% (for at least one of the substance categories). A meaningful reduction for sure, but it should be interesting to test them after a few years of blood donation. On page 6/7 of the JAMA pdf you find the relevant graph. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/articlepdf/2790905/gasiorowski_2022_oi_220196_1648733774.14966.pdf https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/articlepdf/...
- neallindsay 4y agoI would not have guessed that bleeding would come back as a medical treatment in the year 2022.
- ouid 4y agoI've been wondering about this for a long time.
- lizardactivist 4y agoAnd.. pass them on to some other poor bloke? Anyway it does seem like certain stuff seems to build up in the blood-stream over the years, with the body having no way of removing it, and that bleeding and receiving plasma effectively gets rid of it. I wonder if this could be considered as a real medical treatment and offered to people.
- matthias509 4y agoSo your solution is what? Don't donate blood or plasma? Have only humans who aren't exposed to PFAS done blood or plasma (which don't exist anyway)?
- kaycebasques 4y agoWhat is the optimal donation interval? Article mentions that some donated every 6 weeks and others every 12 but it doesn't appear to mention how the interval affected the forever chemical levels. Is more frequent donation better because it's more opportunity to remove the forever chemicals?
- amelius 4y agoAlso, starting from what age is it beneficial?
- mike00632 4y agoSucks to be gay in the United States then. FDA prohibits gay men from donating blood based on outdated fears of contamination.
- KMag 4y agoAt least about 15 years ago, we really had no idea the long-term effects of donating blood as often as the Red Cross allows over multi-year periods. I'm negative for cytomegalovirus, which makes my blood suitable for newborns, cancer patients, HIV patents, etc. I used to donate as often as the Red Cross/New York Blood Center would let me (donating plasma in the in-between times when it was too soon to donate whole blood), but at some point that forced me to get off of my red-meat-once-a-week diet because my iron levels were bouncing down around the donation limits. I didn't realize one check-up with my regular doctor was going to involve a blood screening, so when the nurse drew blood, I told her that I was going to test as anemic since I donated less than a week earlier. I saw the nurse enter my comments into the computer system, but I still got a very concerned call from my doctor a week later about being anemic. The doctor hadn't read the comment on my chart that I had donated recently, but still begged me to eat more red meat and liver and/or cut back on my blood donation frequency. I asked about spinach, broccoli, etc., and she said it was just very difficult to get enough iron that way if I was donating blood that often. I called up the New York Blood Center to see if my regular doctor was over-reacting and/or they had any suggestions about keeping my iron high while donating as often as possible and still keeping red meat consumption low. They told me that there weren't any long-term studies on people who donate as often as they're allowed over long periods. Also, they reaffirmed that red meat and liver are really much more dense sources of iron than any plant sources. Anyway, when you donate whole blood/plasma regularly and you're CMV-negative, they cross-check your blood for leukocyte compatibility with immunocompromised patients. Three times, I was asked to donate leukocytes for kids with cancer. Two times I was able to donate leukocytes, and the third time, my hematocrit was too low. I highly recommend it, if nothing else, you feel like a really decent person for a couple of weeks after donating leukocytes to a kid with cancer. It's a pretty low-effort way to leave the world a little better than you found it. I moved to Hong Kong for a while, and there, they take 400 mL instead of a 500 mL, and let you donate less often, but the minimum body weight limit for donation is lower. (People there are smaller on average and eat less red meat than the average American.) I was also very involved with dragon boat racing there, and being slightly anemic makes training harder, so I only donated once a year in HK. I really should have donated more in the off season. Now, I've got a young son who's blood-compatible with me, so even though they'd never run my blood directly into my son, my wife would really prefer that I keep my blood in my veins for emergencies. I'd still prefer to donate blood, but my wife really doesn't ask that much from me, and it's a small thing to give up for a few years.
- mrfusion 4y agoSo the pfas just mostly hang out in the bloodstream? That seems kind of strange they never get filtered or end up in organs.
- Jeff_Brown 4y agoThis might be great! Or it might be meaningless. The only quantifying passage I see is this one: > “Plasma donation was the most effective intervention, reducing mean serum perfluorooctane sulfonate levels by 2.9 ng/mL compared with a 1.1-ng/mL reduction with blood donation, a significant difference But how much perfluorooctane sulfonate did the study's subjects start with? I don't care if one treatment accomplished more than another until I know that at least one of them made a difference worth making.
- nfriedly 4y agoI know some people are jumping on the idea that these "forever chemicals" just get passed onto the blood recipient, but that misses the "Regular" part. Sure, the first few donations have the higher concentrations of those chemicals, but subsequent donations have fewer forever chemicals. The more you do it, the better quality it becomes.
- KarlKemp 4y agoThere are quite a few regular recipients of blood products, however. It's processed quite a bit (read: separated into its constituent parts and reassembled for what is needed, much like orange juice) which may already filter the stuff.
- chii 4y agoso why don't someone who is merely looking to reduce their own forever chemicals just extract their own blood, and purify using this same method, and inject it back in?
- DoreenMichele 4y agoTakeaway: It's possible to reduce them. That's good. The rest: Eh. It's fairly weak as some kind of medical recommendation if you ask me.
- TheRealNGenius 4y agolol this is literally bloodletting. Like what people in the olden days did. Lol, comes back full circle.
- codyb 4y agoAs a regular donator, it's really important to watch your iron levels. After donating double red blood cells every time I could for two years my iron levels dropped significantly and had a very negative impact on my quality of life until I figured out what was wrong. Now I eat more spinach and chicken to give myself a boost but I'm taking a little break to recoup before going back again. Either way, donating's great, totally should do it, it's super essential and there're always shortages. Just make sure you're supporting yourself if you make it a habit.
- iJohnDoe 4y agoOther than the iron deficiency issue, did you feel like your body was more healthy? More energy? Overall feel better?
- codyb 4y agoHaha, hmm... I'm not sure really. Way too many variables anyways. Have I been drinking? How's my sleep? Am I happy? How'm I eating? Etc, etc.
- mynameisnoone 4y ago
- mkoubaa 4y agoShouldn't this mean that women have fewer of these chemicals due to losing blood regularly on their cycle?
- accountofme 4y agoI just want to say that those medieval doctors, I guess, were on to something! Blood letting is a thing again! On that note I guess leaches would work too.
- londgine 4y agoI get really anxious when it come to needles being put in me. The article only mentions blood donations (presumably because they are trying to advocate for some behavior, not just provide science) but I assume any blood letting would work the same. IIRC fishers would check their bodies afterwards due to leaches sucking blood without them noticing. I wonder how beneficial and pain free it would be to receive leach treatment?
- mleonhard 4y agoAmerican Red Cross keeps donor DNA for "medical research" [0]. Eventually, DNA sequencing will become extremely cheap and Red Cross will sequence all of their samples. Then the DNA data will get stolen, as happened to the Red Cross's refugee database recently [1]. Therefore, people who value their privacy and the privacy of their relatives may wish to use blood-letting instead of blood donation. [0] https://www.redcrossblood.org/content/dam/redcrossblood/controlled-documents/rapidpass/15.4.ltr408_Possible_Use_04152021.pdf https://www.redcrossblood.org/content/dam/redcrossblood/cont... [1] https://www.icrc.org/en/document/sophisticated-cyber-attack-targets-red-cross-red-crescent-data-500000-people https://www.icrc.org/en/document/sophisticated-cyber-attack-...
- mynameisnoone 4y ago[dead]
- TZubiri 4y agoAKA bloodletting
- amai 4y agoThis is not the only health benefit of regular blood donations: Donation of Blood Is Associated with Reduced Risk of Myocardial Infarction https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/148/5/445/76921 https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/148/5/445/76921 Regular blood donation may help in the management of hypertension https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/trf.13428 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/trf.13428 Regular blood donation may lower iron stores, and this in turn lowers lipid peroxidation. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3663474/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3663474/